Who can defeat the Russian Women in 2021-22?

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

I think politics plays into this a lot. I adore Sasha, but she was gifted bronze at Worlds. Her SP was a disaster and her scores were insulting to the skaters that should’ve beaten her in that portion. Many feel Rika should’ve been 1st in the SP. it’s all about who had the most political pull with the judges.
I also don’t see the Japanese federation backing their own skaters, which baffles me.
I think there are many skaters with the potential to beat the Russians if the judging was fair.
A comment was made about a non competitive Zagitova winning US Nationals. Hmmm....Let’s not forget that Bradie beat Zagitova and Mariah Bel beat her in the LP also. I don’t think Zagitova would be winning any US Nationals in the last 2 years. Not in the current shape she is in, nor does she seem to want to retire to a competitive form.

I don't think she was gifted the bronze. Her PCS was monstrously high in both.... but I think she still did enough to beat Karen (who herself was arguably gifted on tech calls, particularly her combo in the short.. and some of those 'q's were a bit kind too) - -if anything Karen was gifted 4th over Hendrickx (which also gifted the US 3 spots, pending).

As for the SP I think Trusova should have been 14th with about 32 PCS. But her SP was not a "disaster" - she made a costly technical error, and was rightfully hammered in points (no combo, lost BV, -GOE etc), but PCS wise it wasn't an egregious error like a fall. It was 10 points shy of her personal best, although I'd still have had her behind Ryabova/Saarinen - who both had pretty much clean skates with a triple-triple. In the FS I'd have had Trusova's PCS in the low 60's with the errors and the lack of commitment to the performance. But the technical advantage still would be enough to put her over Chen. The gap would have been more like 2-3 points.. but then again if Chen's combo had been correctly scored in the SP the gap would be back to about 6-7 points.

I also agree that the Zagitova comment was a bit sus - she's not the skater she once was. In Canada she would win but not the US. The US isn't on par with Russia but let's not pretend like they are chopped liver.

 

[CanadianSkaterGuy]

One of the reasons why I wanted Amber to be sent to worlds instead of Karen was that I wanted to see how her 3A would pass the test at the international competition.

I wanted Amber at Worlds and thought she deserved it more, but in hindsight, sending Karen paid off as she got way more carrots than Amber would have ever received. Should the US have gotten 3 spots? Probably not. But Amber not going means she has a better shot at the Olympics than if she had gone instead of Karen to Worlds 2021. Amber was phenomenal at Nationals but her international personal best is 18 points shy of what Karen received at Worlds and would have put her out of the top 10. Karen being a former National champion (and a better skater, artistically, than Glenn) made her a much easier sell, and it got the US the spots.

 

[bostonskaterguy86]

I wanted Amber at Worlds and thought she deserved it more, but in hindsight, sending Karen paid off as she got way more carrots than Amber would have ever received.

Agreed. As many have commented I think it would have been great to send Amber to WTT for the international experience instead. Karen came in clutch at Worlds, dodgy scoring aside, and got the job done - and honestly, depending on how Amber does next season, that could very much have opened the door for her to nab a spot for Olympics or Worlds next season.

 

[silveruskate]

While your point about competitive environments is a fair one, it doesn't make what I said any less true. Eteri's skaters have a fraction of the shelf life of most other skaters, i.e. no longevity. By the time they hit 18 years old they've either been eclipsed by someone younger, are injured or struggling to maintain their technique. Regardless of the reason the result is the same--they leave. Thus, no longevity.



A resounding YES. To me, watching someone in their 20s struggle yet continue to work on jump issues, try improve their skating, and grow as an athlete and a person is oh so great and very admirable. Being the best and winning all the time isn't everything. If you think a person experiencing lows in their skating and trying to work through it isn't admirable, I feel sorry for you. Some of the most amazing, inspiring and touching performances I can think of have come from skaters who previously struggled with their technique, consistency or some other issue and yet continued to fight and improve and finally had their moment:

Irina Slutskaya's 2005 world title
Carolina Kostner winning bronze in Sochi in 2014 at her 3rd Olympics
Ashley Wagner winning world silver in 2016
Shizuka Arakawa winning the gold in Torino in 2006
Liza T winning worlds in 2015
Kaetlyn Osmond's 2017 world silver and 2018 Oly bronze and world title
Mao Asada's Sochi Olys FS and 2014 worlds SP
Mirai Nagasu winning silver at nationals in 2018 and her FS from the team event at the Olys
Akiko Suzuki finally winning nationals in 2014
Mariah Bell's 2020 nationals FS
Liza T winning silver at worlds this year

FYI, with the exception of Liza T's world title in 2015 (18 yrs old), everyone else on this list were in their 20s when they achieved these accomplishments...

I think it's really unfair the way you're holding their nationality against them. It's not their fault they represent Russia and the field is so deep. In any other country they would still be challenging for Worlds places. The way you're coming after these girls is mean-spirited in my opinion.

They are not any worse than Mariah, Wagner, Mirai or Kaetlyn, just unlucky. Not evaluating the competition in Russia compared to other countries as a massive point - which it is - makes zero sense to me.

 

[ELEk3k]

That's a pretty idealistic point of view. Many of your examples, the skaters have all the job security in the world. They can afford to have 2 or 3 weak years. And they know that the effort and money spent will very likely not be wasted - they will be in demand regardless.

On the other side, we have the realistic point of view. In Russia, that'd be quite a luxury. Generally, you can't just keep pouring resources into such an expensive sport where you're very likely not going to be rewarded for it. Say you're around top 10 to top 15 in Russia, which still is a top 3 skater in most other countries. You won't even get any international assignments. Is it worth spending many years of money and hard work when you could be going to a university to study instead, for example?

Of your examples, only Tuktamysheva's recent silver(Not her 2015 worlds win, she was very young at the time) is relevant. Unless you want to count Mariah Bell(who lost to a 14-year-old anyway, and only got nationals silver).


The actual solution to this is to remove country limits and treat every athlete as individuals by their own merits. That way these older skaters won't be competing against Russia, but the rest of the world - against which they'll fare much better.

That's right! In fact, because of the great competition within Russia among figure skaters, you can try to get to the 1-2 Olympiads, and then leave to study. In this case, you get the maximum benefit from everything! You have already achieved success in sports, you are becoming a media personality, you are young and you have the opportunity to get an education and build a full-fledged career in something else, regardless of whether it will be related to sports. Which doesn't seem bad to me. Somewhere I saw or read that Zagitova said bluntly that she was not participating in the domestic championships now because there was too much competition.
Trusova also said that she wants to go in for figure skating of the 1-2 Olympic Games, then make a family, and only then see whether to return or not. There is nothing wrong with skaters thinking not only about sports but also how to build their lives correctly.

 

[odinv]

If you want to be competitive in Russia, then the likely route is to sacrifice longevity. Short term success is better than the likely alternative of no success. Sure there are exceptions, but those are outliers and most would not bet on that.

I cheer for dark horses (definitely toasted Tuktamysheva when she came 2nd at Stockholm), but lets face it, it is a rare occurrence when it happens in Russia, which is probably also what makes it special.

A debate can be had on it being an ideal situtaion or otherwise, but it is what it is, and unlikely to change anytime soon. The athletes (or rather their guardians) can probably read the writing on the wall, and likely know what they are getting into.

Leaving judging as a conversation for another time, because I don't know enough to touch that subject, the fact is that they have at a minimum 6 to 7 athletes who could at least be medal contenders in Beijing if they had Olympic spots clearly shows that if those at the top didn't do it, well there are others who would happily take their place.

That's not counting the other half a dozen to a dozen who could probably qualify (although maybe not compete for top positions) if they were representing most other countries.

 

[florin]

The post you are replying to didn't say anything about the longevity of the current US ladies. It was about Eteri's ability as coach, the point being that she hasn't produced skater with longevity in the sport. This is unlike her fellow countrymen, Mishin and Moskvina, as well as other legendary coaches like Frank Carroll.

Because Eteri's coaching staff has basically started a technical revolution in women's figure skating. During the technical revolution, the lifetime of working models will always be relatively short - whether we are talking, for example, about the first jet planes or about computer processors at the end of the last century/beginning of this century. Or about the Russian lady skaters of the end of the second decade of the 21st century. Alas, this is how the universe works.

 

[florin]

Speaking on the subject. In the current situation, the Russians ladies imho can be defeated only in a situation of internal confusion and vacillation. As, for example, it was this year, when some people with great ambitions and big money, but not with so much experience and a sence of appropriateness, made serious perturbations and even managed to temporarily slow down/disable two top skaters. Well, Rika had a chance, but out of habit she didn't take it. Most likely, there will be no more such chances - apparently, there has been a consolidation on this issue within the federation and all political games have been postponed in the face of the Olympics.

 

[Gourlie]

Maybe Olga Mikutina could surprise next season. Obviously she is not on the level of the Russians but if she will continue in the progress from last season, who knows.

 

[[email protected]]

Next season Russian team will be stronger than this year's one. Hence, looking at Stockholm's scores and trying to meausure other girls' chances against them means little sense. The only relevant proxy is last year Rusnats. These were the performances no one ever was close to. Yes, if Rika somehow jumps 2 3As, a quad, and 2 3Lzs, if Alysa Liu brings back her big jumps and at the same time overcomes her past UR issues, if, if... sometimes life brings more surprises than science fiction but usually it does not.

 

[DSQ]

Because Eteri's coaching staff has basically started a technical revolution in women's figure skating. During the technical revolution, the lifetime of working models will always be relatively short - whether we are talking, for example, about the first jet planes or about computer processors at the end of the last century/beginning of this century. Or about the Russian lady skaters of the end of the second decade of the 21st century. Alas, this is how the universe works.

That’s a very interesting point and it makes me think will a different coach/ country be the ones to perfect the technique but without the short shelf life?

Because even if you take the internal Russian competition into account Eteri’s skaters do start losing to non Russian’s. (Zagitova in the GPF 2019, Medvedeva in Skate Canada in 2018) The internal competition just means they don’t get a chance improve because the next girl is ready.

 

[Lzbee]

That’s a very interesting point and it makes me think will a different coach/ country be the ones to perfect the technique but without the short shelf life?

Because even if you take the internal Russian competition into account Eteri’s skaters do start losing to non Russian’s. (Zagitova in the GPF 2019, Medvedeva in Skate Canada in 2018) The internal competition just means they don’t get a chance improve because the next girl is ready.

Edit: My bad, I read your comment as "Eteri skaters start losing a "ton" but I'll leave this here anyway since I think it's still relevant to the conversation.

I don't know, this "ton" feels like it's being applied differently to Eteri girls than others.

Medvedeva has been to 37 international competitions and won 25 of them. Yuna Kim has been to 31 international competitions and won 21 of them.

I guess you could say that Medvedeva was off the podium twice whereas Yuna never was. Yuna has only ever lost to 7 different skaters. Evgenia has lost to a few more than that but only 6 were not Russian and she's coming up to her 7th senior season as well (same as Yuna who also took a year out).

So when you look at it like this, it doesn't feel like Evgenia is that much more "flash in a pan" than Yuna was. The biggest difference may be that Evgenia only went to 3 worlds and is unlikely to make any more whereas Yuna went to 6 but that's due to domestic competition.

 

[[email protected]]

That’s a very interesting point and it makes me think will a different coach/ country be the ones to perfect the technique but without the short shelf life?

Because even if you take the internal Russian competition into account Eteri’s skaters do start losing to non Russian’s. (Zagitova in the GPF 2019, Medvedeva in Skate Canada in 2018) The internal competition just means they don’t get a chance improve because the next girl is ready.

My logic will be just the opposite. The internal competition with the quote 3 (or whatever the number for GP series) only means that at a given point in time there are multiple skaters all of whom are better than the rest of the world. "The short shelf life" with all my reservation about the term will mean just that the composition of teams in quota prone competitions will be different. Those who will be best ready out of the pool of equally good talent will be in the team

And one more time: all the examples pre-2021-22 are irrelevant. Now that an idiotic experiment of Plushy's poaching of Alyona and Sasha is over "The machine" is finally up and running. No one says that "the short shelf life" is a pre-requisite of the members of this machine. If Valieva is capable of performing the way she performed last season for a number of years, if that is physically possible, I am sure, that she will be in the team as long as it takes. My point is that the age of "queens" is over. I don't think that Yuna would stand a slightest chance against Kamila, her best performance ever vs. Kamila's best performance. But even that is not the point. A popular argument of "the queen's" fans is that for many years she did not miss a podium. Now tell me, how many times did she score below 200 in the competitions? What podiums? In the current Russian machine you will hardly get a chance to be in the team with a single subpar performance. That is an immense stress to be always in the best shape possible, the stress Yuna, Caro, and other "long shelf life queens" never faced. And I am sure that their shelf life in the current Russian environment would be hardly longer than that of any skater you name.

 

[florin]

That’s a very interesting point and it makes me think will a different coach/ country be the ones to perfect the technique but without the short shelf life?

Because even if you take the internal Russian competition into account Eteri’s skaters do start losing to non Russian’s. (Zagitova in the GPF 2019, Medvedeva in Skate Canada in 2018) The internal competition just means they don’t get a chance improve because the next girl is ready.

Quoting the classic - " Mixed up in a bunch of horses, people"

First, in Skate Canada in 2018, Medvedeva was not with Eteri, but was in the process of unconscious downshifting. Secondly, Zagitova after the GPF 2019, had a victory at the World Cup-2019. It is impossible to win all the time, and we are talking about a general systemic trend, not about particular deviations.

You misunderstood why there is a decrease in the "average life of a working model" during the technical revolution. This is not for some magical reason, but simply because the processor released three years ago is outdated at a fundamental level, at the level of architecture.

The same goes for the skaters. Tuktamysheva simply can not move, do the same transitions as young figure skaters - her foundation was laid three Olympic cycles ago. Her true feat that she has accomplished in the last three or four years is not that she jumps three trixels, but that she was able to make her plasticity, her choreography at least similar to modern samples (and I was very complimentary to her when I wrote " similar"). Just becase she knew how to do trixels at the age of 12, there was no fundamental novelty for her here.

Learning something fundamentally new at the age of 20 is an order of magnitude more difficult than at the age of 12, so they will inevitably give in to younger ones. I will emphasize once again for a better understanding - this happens when YOU HAVE something fundamentally new to learn. That is, when there is a rapid development, revolution. But when different Olympic generations teach about the same thing, then you will have long careers.

Addition 1. Of course, all this works only when you have: a) tough internal competition, and b) work on the result. Obviously, if you are the only Carolina Costner in your country, you can skate at least until you are forty. And, if you skate for your own pleasure/because you do not know how to do anything else/you are financially secure - you can also have a long career.

Addition 2. What happened this year with Tuktamysheva is a happy (for her) case, a rare exception. Let's just say that without the serious help of a former student of her coach, this most likely would not have happened. She had a lucky chance and (unlike Rika) took advantage of it.

 

[flanker]

That’s a very interesting point and it makes me think will a different coach/ country be the ones to perfect the technique but without the short shelf life?

Because even if you take the internal Russian competition into account Eteri’s skaters do start losing to non Russian’s. (Zagitova in the GPF 2019, Medvedeva in Skate Canada in 2018) The internal competition just means they don’t get a chance improve because the next girl is ready.

Any skater of those who are given as an example of the longevity had such skates as those that were named here. Of the current active competitors of the russian ladies Rika was far beyond expectations at Worlds and WTT. In the 2019/20 season, Kaori Sakamoto, who is now a hope for "longevity and balanced results" didn't even reach Alina's worst score (and no one was writing about her as "she starts losing to non Japanese"). You are not supposed to be absolutely perfect at every single one competition. That's impossible. Although the current russian ladies make impossible possible, they are still humans. If there was such a big competition in the other countries, all the "longevity skaters" would face the same problems, which means that the one who is currently better will replace you if you do not deliver at your best, because that's how the things work in sport unless you would keep some names "in the circle" artificially.

Althoug, as was said here and in many other discussions about this topics already. I do not think the longevity is a value per se. You can be an athlete with "longevity" and still finishing somewhere around the 10th place or worse and you can win everything within a two or three seasons and do something else then. I would choose the second variant honestly. Anybody is free to judge this differently of course, but the only important thing here is what the athlete wants. If he/she wants to skate he/she will do that no matter the results probably, but there is also another life and skating shouldn't be taken as a burden.

Edit: I see @florin in his comment above me made more or less the same points just minutes before I finished this

 

[odinv]

I don't really know much about the history of skating, so this post is less about me making an argument for/against the motion, and more of me asking a history question.

Let's try a thought experiment. Put aside calls, judging, politics, and any other external factors that we can think of for a moment. I'm also including longevity (or lack of) in this experiment.

Longevity in this instance can simply mean being able to participate in competitions and thus more opportunities to win. My personal admiration for it aside, longevity from a competitive advantage standpoint is really just more opportunities, since other things that it might bring to the table like experience should translate into the ability to perform better.

In other words, we shall focus strictly on the historical skating ability of the top ladies skaters as you (my hopefully better informed fellow forum members) would perceive them.

So after we hypothetically erase every skater's nationality, how many competitions in recent history (since maybe Sochi?) would have been won by the Russians, and how many would have gone to skaters from elsewhere?

 

[halulupu]

Gracie Gold

 

[Mathman]

I don't really know much about the history of skating, so this post is less about me making an argument for/against the motion, and more of me asking a history question.

When I think of longevity in the context of figure skating history I can't help thinking of Michelle Kwan. She won 5 world championships in 8 years, taking on all comers.

Of course one can ask, but what if she had had to skate against Medvedeva and Zagitova, or against Shcherbakova, Kostornia and Trusova? To me, that is a moot point. What if Kwan had competed against Katarina Witt or Sonja Henie? IMHO that question is of academic interest only. These last-named skaters dominated the sport for years, as did Kwan.

Now we appear to have entered a different era, one in which no one individual will be able to hold the lead year after year. We'll see how it plays out. To me, it seems not impossible that some day a Yuna Kim will come along and pose a threat to "the machine." The future is full of surprises.

 

[Skuratov]

Who can defeat the Russian Ladies 2021-2022?

Answer: the Russian ladies. Wait, Tursynbaeva is going to compete?

The Rest at the most will win a bronze medal in each stage of the Grand Prix, except at Rostelecom (russian host spot). For the Challenger series will be the same.

Kihira: a younger and health Rika with 2-3 trixels couldn't beat either Kostornaia without trixels/quads or Sasha with an unstable 4S. (JGPF 2017). Rika couldn't beat the Russian Trinity with multiple trixels/quads two seasons ago and you watched at last Worlds what happened with her in the FS. No way she can beat a most complete skater like Valieva.

Liu: With multiple trixels/quads was unable to beat an injured Valieva without trixels/quads (JGPF 2019). Now KaMissile is armed with multiple trixels/quads and a monster second mark. TShK level is an utopia for her.

Young You: She is the Korean Rika Kihira.

All other skaters from Japan, USA, Korea, Europe don´t have the slightlest chance.

 

[kirauza343]

Kihira: a younger and health Rika with 2-3 trixels couldn't beat either Kostornaia without trixels/quads or Sasha with an unstable 4S. (JGPF 2017). Rika couldn't beat the Russian Trinity with multiple trixels/quads two seasons ago and you watched at last Worlds what happened with her in the FS. No way she can beat a most complete skater like Valieva.

What she did in 2017 as a junior isn’t relevant. Some skaters don’t peak then believe it or not, and she’s had a much more successful senior career.

Worlds was bad but to be fair it was pretty bad for everyone. I mean, Sasha medaled with a 217! That’s a score that would’ve only been good enough for 6th at the previous worlds and that was with only two ladies attempting triple axels or quads as opposed to the four here. It was Rika’s worst free skate as a senior but her next lowest score at that point was 12 points better, and the vast majority of her free skates scored at least 20 points higher than she did at Worlds. She had one very weak performance but that shouldn’t count her out (as we saw with Sasha skating beautifully at Nationals after her disastrous Rostelecom performance).

I’m not saying Rika doesn’t have an uphill battle to try and podium and Beijing but she definitely shouldn’t be written off. She has the best shot of any non-Russian with her tech and artistry; she just has to be able to put it together to really fight for it (because that’s her biggest problem at this point: she struggles to skate two clean programs, but that doesn’t mean she can’t). A clean Rika is absolutely good enough to pressure the Russians.